Comodo Dragon vs Google Chrome [Updated!]

Last year, I published an article comparing Comodo Dragon and Google Chrome (link) when Comodo Dragon web browser was first released. Even today, many people read it. Thanks to Google. In this one year, Comodo Dragon (CD) has improved a lot and that article doesn’t comply with the current version of CD. It reflects the early days of CD. But, as many people are still reading that article and the article doesn’t hold good for the new version of CD, I decided to update the article so that the readers get correct and up-to-date information.

I’ll be reviewing Comodo Dragon 12.2 which is based on Chromium 12.0.742.112 (which was released in June ending). It’s apparent that Comodo Dragon runs on an out dated version. At the time of writing this article, current stable version of Google Chrome is 13.0.782.112. I don’t blame Comodo for this. It’s tough to catch up with Google’s ultra frequent updates, but still they are doing good job in updating CD as often as possible. For most of the part, both CD and Chrome are almost most same, except for few features. Especially, for Privacy and security features.

Comodo Dragon offers better privacy and security over Google Chrome and we can read about it from CD’s release notes.

Comodo Dragon Release Notes:

Comodo Dragon internet browser is based on the source code of Google Chrome browser but has a number of improvements, which includes fixes some privacy and security improvements.

1. ADDED Certificate Domain Validation checking warning

Comodo Dragon uses advanced domain validation technology originally developed in Comodo Verification Engine. It performs additional analysis of a domain’s SSL certificate to warn about those that been issued with Domain Only Validation.

2. FIXED Client identification number privacy issue.

Comodo Dragon fixes this privacy issues, which exists in Chrome browser. Chrome creates an ID for each client (user). This security gap theoretically can be used to identify a user. This ID has been removed.

3. REMOVED RLZ-Tracking capability.

RLZ-Tracking is a Chrome’s feature which informs Google about when and where the browser has been downloaded. This capability has been removed in Dragon. This has been done to protect user privacy

4. Comodo’s traditional product update technology is used.

Dragon uses Comodo’s own installer and update technology. Chrome, on the other hand, checks for updates and makes update via Google Updater, legality of which was put under question by Red Bend Software. Google Updater was entirely eliminated in Dragon

5. REMOVED error reporting mechanism.

Error reporting is used by Google to find and remove problems in their software however the information, which is sent to Google, includes some data about the computer’s software. In case it this information is intercepted by an attacker, it can be used to reveal vulnerabilities in the computer’s security system. Comodo Dragon has eliminated this mechanism is order not to compromise user’s security and privacy.

6. REMOVED installation time-tracking.

Comodo’s installation technology doesn’t use and store information about when the software was installed and updated, all actions are based only on your current version number, whereas Chrome installation stores detailed (up to the second) information about software installation time

7. ADDED smart software removal

During software remove Dragon asks user whether he or she wants to keep user preferences data (home page, search engine customizing, etc) and leaves or removes user profile based on his or her choice. This is done for user’s convenience. Leaving user’s profile on your computer is recommended if you are going to return to using Dragon in future

Apart from above differences, I observed few more notable differences.

1. Portable installation :

Comodo Dragon offers an option to install it on USB drives through its installer. This comes very handy if you want to take the browser along with your favorites etc on USB.

In order to make CD portable, point the installation directory to the removable USB drive. Once the installation is finished, CD is ready to be carried on your USB drive.

2. Better Privacy Control :

As you’ve read above CD offers better Privacy. It won’t send usage statistics and crash reports to Google (read above quoted release notes for more info). Along with Google’s malware protection it comes with additional security layer i.e. Comodo Secure DNS. You can choose to install Comodo Secure DNS at the time of installation. You can either set your computer DNS to Comodo Secure DNS servers, so that all applications use it or else you can just opt to use it only for Comodo Dragon.

Comodo Dragon specific features are marked with “X”

Apart from these features, CD comes with its own features like

Always start your browsing session with incognito mode.

Implementation of Do Not Track feature (which isn’t implemented in Google, but can be added to Chrome via Keep My Opt-Outs extension)

Clear history and Cookies on exit. Chrome has this feature of cleaning cookies on exit. But it doesn’t have clear history on exit.

The current version of Comodo Dragon supports all extensions and has all the features of Chrome. It has the correct balance of flexibility and security and it is better than Chrome when it comes to privacy issues. So, if privacy is your major concern then use Comodo Dragon.

P.S :Due to strict security settings on Comodo Dragon, especially regarding sites which use SSL, they don’t work as expected on Comodo Dragon. Some plugins like WOT doesn’t work on Comodo Dragon and for those who desperately need WOT ratings on Comodo Dragon can use other plugins like Webutation. Webutation uses different services (including WOT) to rate websites and Webutation works well with Comodo Dragon.

A lot of emphasis has been put on privacy issue but I don’t think it’s needed. If Google is caching any data then it’s used in making better future products. If anyone have problem with it then one should not use any Google product including Google Search. So I don’t believe in comparing Chrome with dragon.

Been running CD for the last week now, really impressed. Switched to CD following a clean re-install of Windows 7 – my laptop was crammed full of tracking software and a few trojans; bloody WhiteSmoke virus :S.

CD seems to have everything that I want from my browser, and has flagged a lot of sites as malicious that Chrome never had a problem with. Definitely more stable than Chrome and not as prone to crashing, it handles multipe tabs really well too.

Comodo Dragon definitely gets the thumbs up from me from a UX perspective. The privacy/security improvements listed above are what initially drove me towards it, but the functionality will certainly keep me using it.

Comodo Dragon has a few new features that didn’t make the year-old list – including the Privalert extension (a quicker Ghostery) and SiteInspector – both of which are sleekly integrated and can be completely uninstalled from the add-on list.

Currently, secure DNS is MUCH faster than it was at the date of this article’s editing. I have been using CD, Chrome Canary (dang Google updater and all), as well as the most recent snapshots / continuous builds of Chromium for benchmarking purposes (both ostensible and clinical). While indeed slower in many aspects, Dragon is not sluggish. It feels on-par with the current Firefox Nighty in terms of loading speed, which is by all means an acceptable rate, and it still appears to work well with experimental SPDY 3.0 and HTTP pipelining.

Overall, it’s a really good – though only alternative choice – to Chromium for great Webkit-based browsing. Here’s hoping the development team will bring more updates to the forefront in the future. And, hopefully, continue to keep it unerringly stable.

Comodo Dragon does not have the Privalert extension anymore as of this writing. This feature was removed on account of a number of bugs that still require ironing out. It will supposedly be re-implemented in early 2013.

However, Comodo Dragon still runs quicker than the current Google Chrome release on my machine. This may be in part due to the removal of code bloat and other Google services that are not present in Chromium-based builds.

To clarify: I am in no way associated with Comodo and only offer my personal experience. All of this is running on Windows 7 64-bit, with 8GB of native RAM. This is purely an attempt to keep people informed about new developments before they download the browser in question.

I’m using Comodo Dragon. Used Google Chrome before, but it crashes and freezes a lot. It even caused BSoD to my Windows 7. I could tell that because the stupid BSoD never came back after I uninstalled Chrome. From my experience, Comodo Dragon only crashes once and that was when I tried to install Adblock Plus extension.

There’s not much difference between these two browsers’ interface, really; in fact the only thing I noticed was the tool (wrench icon on Google Chrome) is located at the left side. Anything you could find in Chrome, it’s available in Dragon, too. Chrome Web Store, theme, extensions, apps, Google Account data sync, etc (the Adblock Plus started to work soon after I re-open the browser). And I honestly can’t tell any difference on the speed. But if you think it’s slower than Chrome, you might want to try to disable the Comodo Secure DNS.

WOT does work with Comodo Dragon i installed it when i first used Comodo Dragon and it still works and the version im running is 22.1 the newest. it still blocks be from websites that are not safe like it should be doing and i can choose weather to go to that site or have it stake me away form it like it should be doing when it works.

Hi Elenore, used Lunascape for a while, but it isn’t as expected. It is slow. Even though it supports 3 popular engines, i.e. Trident, gecko and webkit, I found them to be a bit old, atleast firefox’s gecko is much better than this.

Run Dragon for a few weeks to see how it holds up compared to Chrome, and have found it to all intensive purposes the equal to Google’s excellent browser. After running sessions on both browsers, and then using Index.dat analyser to see what is left behind, have consistently found less tracking traces and cookies being left by Dragon than by Chrome (although Firefox with the Better Privacy add-on leaves even less behind), so dragon wins hands down in the privacy stakes, and with barely noticeable differences in loading web pages, I have decided Dragon is the better browser, and has now replaced Chrome as my default browser. Oh, and all the extensions I tried out, worked well on both browsers.

I love really like the idea of Comodo Dragon, the one and only reason it’s not the browser I use right now is because I can not get it to sync xmarks. Otherwise it would be top and only browser on my PC

when u sign in with ur ggogle/youtube account u wont need xmarks any more ur google account sycs everything u want adn if u need to go on a different computer just sign in with ur google account and walla all ur stuff will be there

[…] My advice here is limited to Como do Dragon and Firefox. I do realize that there are many other browsers out there, but I have had to narrow it to these two. Both of these browsers have an option to start in a mode in which most privacy traces will be cleared as soon as the browser is closed. This is not nearly enough to adequately protect your privacy, but it is a good start. In Como do Dragon this is called ‘Incognito Mode’ and in Firefox it’s called ‘Private Browsing’. Below I have also compiled useful add-ons/extensions that work for both browsers. Also, please note that those listed for Como do Dragon should also work for most other Chromium browsers. Please scroll down to whichever browser you are using for advice on which add-ons/extensions to use. On a side note, if you are using Google Chrome I strongly suggest that you find another browser. It has serious privacy issues. […]

[…] My advice here is limited to Comodo Dragon and Firefox. I do realize that there are many other browsers out there, but I have had to narrow it to these two. Both of these browsers have an option to start in a mode in which most privacy traces will be cleared as soon as the browser is closed. This is not nearly enough to adequately protect your privacy, but it is a good start. In Comodo Dragon this is called ‘Incognito Mode’ and in Firefox it’s called ‘Private Browsing’. Below I have also compiled useful addons/extensions that work for both browsers. Also, please note that those listed for Comodo Dragon should also work for most other Chromium browsers. Please scroll down to whichever browser you are using for advice on which addons/extensions to use. On a side note, if you are using Google Chrome I strongly suggest that you find another browser. It has serious privacy issues. […]